Topic and Research Question

VET systems across Europe are under pressure to secure educational participation, reduce inequalities, support training completion, and facilitate labour market integration. These expectations arise amid growing learner heterogeneity, psychosocial strain, language support needs, demographic change, and persistent risks of exclusion.

This paper addresses support courses in Swiss vocational education and training as a case for analysing school-based support measures as instruments of inclusion-oriented governance. Support courses have been legally anchored in Switzerland since 1978 and were originally introduced mainly as compensatory support for learners with weaker academic performance. Over time, their function has expanded towards broader support, including language support, learning strategies, individual guidance, and psychosocial stabilisation.

The paper addresses the following research question:

How can support courses in vocational education and training be conceptualised as instruments of inclusion-oriented governance, and which multi-level conditions shape their contribution to inclusive educational participation?

Aim and Conceptual/Theoretical Framework

The aim is to reconstruct the historical development of support courses in Swiss VET and to situate this development within a European perspective on inclusive support architectures. The paper analyses support courses not as additional pedagogical provision, but as institutionally embedded support measures at the intersection of policy, school organisation, professional practice, and learner participation.

The study applies a multi-level perspective. At the macro level, it examines legal anchoring, governance arrangements, responsibilities, and institutional frameworks. At the meso level, it analyses school-level implementation, curricular embedding, access and referral procedures, professionalisation, and cooperation between learning venues. At the micro level, it considers learner access, pedagogical support processes, participation opportunities, and risks of stigmatisation.

The conceptual framework combines multi-level approaches in educational and comparative VET research, governance perspectives on coordination and institutional steering, and a broad understanding of inclusion as participation-oriented access to and retention within VET.

On this basis, the paper develops an analytical framework for understanding support courses as part of inclusion-oriented support architectures. This framework highlights target-group definitions, access logics, institutional embedding, curricular integration, professionalisation, learning venue cooperation, quality assurance, and destigmatisation.

International Dimension and Preliminary Results

The international dimension is central to the paper. The Swiss case is analysed in relation to inclusive support architectures in Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and England. This comparative perspective shows that support in VET is not organised according to a single model, but is framed, governed, and legitimised differently across national contexts.

The historical document analysis shows a shift in Switzerland from a deficit-oriented tutoring logic towards a broader and more inclusion-oriented support logic. Support courses increasingly respond to heterogeneous learner needs and are no longer limited to subject-related remediation.

The comparative analysis identifies commonalities and differences across European support architectures. Key dimensions include target-group definitions, access procedures, institutional responsibilities, curricular embedding, professionalisation, cooperation between learning venues, quality assurance, and destigmatising communication. In Switzerland, support courses are strongly anchored in law, while their implementation depends on cantonal regulations, school-level room for manoeuvre, and local resources.

Contribution and Conclusion

This paper provides added value for VET research and educational policy. Conceptually, it offers a multi-level analytical framework for understanding support courses as instruments of inclusion-oriented governance within broader support architectures. Empirically, it shows how historical and comparative document analysis can reveal conditions under which support measures contribute to participation, equity, and training completion.

The paper contributes to the European debate on how VET systems can respond to heterogeneity, psychosocial strain, demographic change, and labour-market-related demands. It argues that support courses should not be understood as isolated remedial measures, but as institutionally embedded forms of support mediating between policy objectives, school practice, and learner needs.

The study employs a qualitative document-based research design, integrating historical and comparative methodologies to analyse support courses in vocational education and training as instruments of inclusion-oriented governance. It combines a historical reconstruction of the Swiss case with a comparative analysis of inclusive support architectures in selected European VET systems. For the historical dimension, a historical-analytical document analysis was conducted, examining 44 documents, including laws, education policy texts, evaluation reports, implementation documents, and academic literature from 1978 onwards. This made it possible to trace the institutional, pedagogical, and functional development of support courses in Swiss VET and to identify key shifts from a deficit-oriented tutoring logic towards broader inclusion-oriented support. The analysis focused on how support courses were framed legally, organisationally, and pedagogically, which target groups were addressed, and how responsibilities and access procedures changed over time. The comparative dimension involved a five-country study covering Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and England. It was based on a category-guided analysis of 79 documents, including legal foundations, policy and governance documents, implementation materials, monitoring and evaluation reports, and academic publications. Rooted in comparative VET research, this qualitative document analysis examined how support is described, legitimised, organised, and institutionally embedded across national contexts. The comparative lens allowed commonalities and differences in inclusive support architectures to be identified, particularly regarding target groups, access logics, responsibilities, curricular embedding, professionalisation, quality assurance, and risks of stigmatisation. The systemic classification of support courses is informed by a multi-level perspective. This framework captures the interplay between macro-level governance and legal conditions, meso-level school organisation and implementation, and micro-level learner access, pedagogical support processes, and participation opportunities. The study does not aim to measure the causal effectiveness of individual support measures or to evaluate learner outcomes directly. Rather, it reconstructs the institutional and programmatic conditions under which support courses and comparable measures are framed and governed. The combination of historical and comparative document analysis provides the basis for developing an analytical framework for inclusion-oriented governance in VET.

This study is expected to yield significant conclusions and findings with added value for VET research and educational policy actors. Conceptually, it will offer a multi-level analytical framework for understanding support courses in vocational education and training as instruments of inclusion-oriented governance. Rather than positioning them as isolated remedial measures, the paper conceptualises support courses as institutionally embedded forms of support within broader inclusive support architectures in VET. The framework consolidates central dimensions shaping their contribution to inclusive educational participation, including target-group definitions, access procedures, institutional responsibilities, curricular embedding, professionalisation, cooperation between learning venues, quality assurance, and destigmatisation. Empirically, the historical analysis will demonstrate a clear shift in Swiss VET from a deficit-oriented tutoring logic towards a broader and more inclusion-oriented support logic. Support courses have expanded beyond subject-related remediation and increasingly address language support, learning strategies, individual guidance, and psychosocial strain. The comparative five-country analysis will identify commonalities and differences in inclusive support architectures across Switzerland, Germany, Austria, the Netherlands, and England. It will show that support measures are framed, governed, and legitimised differently across national VET systems, particularly regarding access, responsibilities, institutional embedding, and quality assurance. At the same time, persistent inequalities and risks of stigmatisation remain relevant across contexts. Ultimately, the study aims to strengthen the position of evidence-informed VET research and to foster dialogue among decision-makers and practitioners across Europe. The expected outcomes include analytical insights into how support measures such as support courses can be designed, embedded, and governed to enhance inclusion, educational quality, participation, and successful training completion. In line with SDG 4, the paper contributes to a more nuanced understanding of how VET systems can respond to learner heterogeneity, psychosocial strain, demographic change, and labour-market-related demands while promoting educational equity and lifelong learning.

•Eidgenössisches Departement für auswärtige Angelegenheiten (EDA). (2020). Ziel 4: Inklusive, gleichberechtigte und hochwertige Bildung gewährleisten und Möglichkeiten lebenslangen Lernens für alle fördern. Agenda 2030. https://www.eda.admin.ch/agenda2030/de/home/agenda-2030/die-17-ziele-fuer-eine-nachhaltige-entwicklung/ziel-4-inklusive-gleichberechtigteund-hochwertige-bildung.html •Ertl, H. (2022). T Levels als Kern eines neuen Qualifikationssystems in England: Hintergründe, Implementierung und Einordnung. In P. Grollmann et al. (Eds.), Vergleichende Berufsbildungsforschung – Ergebnisse und Perspektiven aus Theorie und Empirie (pp. 165–181). Verlag Barbara Budrich. •Kuckartz, U. & Rädiker, S. (2024). Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Methoden, Praxis, Umsetzung mit Software und künstlicher Intelligenz. Beltz Juventa. •Pilz, M. (2017). Typologien in der international-vergleichenden Berufsbildungsforschung.: Funktionen und ein neuer Ansatz. Zeitschrift für Pädagogik, 63(6), 761–782. •Scharnhorst, U., & Kammermann, M. (2017). Wie inklusiv ist die zweijährige berufliche Grundbildung in der Schweiz? In M. Becker, M. Kammermann, G. Spöttl, & L. Balzer (Eds.), Ausbildung zum Beruf: Internationaler Vergleich der berufsförmigen Ausbildungskonzepte für benachteiligte Jugendliche (S. 245–286). Peter Lang. •Schweizerische Eidgenossenschaft. (2002). Bundesgesetz über die Berufsbildung vom 13.Dezember 2002 (Stand am 1. März 2025). https://www.fedlex.admin.ch/eli/cc/2003/674/de •Wolf, A. (2011). Review of vocational education: The Wolf report. Department for Education. https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/review-of-vocational-education-the-wolf-report •Wüthrich, R. (2024). (Un)genutztes Potenzial – Unterstützungsmaßnahmen zur Erhöhung von Inklusion an Berufsfachschulen. bwp@ Berufs- und Wirtschaftspädagogik – online, 46, 1–17. https://www.bwpat.de/ausgabe46/wuethrich_bwpat46.pdf